Did you know Scotland had its own Test Act?

I was browsing the Dumfries Kirk Session Minutes indexed online at http://www.dgcommunity.net/historicalindexes/default.aspx recently and came across several merchants in August 1689 who were being appointed as deacon and elders either regretting that they had taken “the Test” or saying that they had not taken “the Test”.

After the Restoration, in 1662 Charles II re-introduced Episcopalianism to Scotland under the “Act for the restitution and reestablishment of the ancient government of the church by archbishops and bishops” (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1662/5/9). The Test Act in England and Wales was passed in 1672. There doesn’t seem to have been a similar Act in Scotland until 1681 when the “Act Anent Religion and the Test” was passed (http://www.rps.ac.uk/trans/1681/7/29)

The Dumfries Kirk Session indexes only start in 1689 so I don’t know if this Test Act was causing a problem before then. William and Mary accepted the Scottish Crown on 11 May 1689, just before these Dumfries merchants were being ordained as elders and deacons. However given that the act applied to “all magistrates, deans of guild, councillors and clerks of burghs royal and regality, all deacons of trades and deacon-conveners in the said burghs” the merchants could have been in an embarrasing position.